Congratulations Skydiver Felix Baumgartner, on the success of your 24 mile skydive. You proved that it is possible to bail out of a space ship and land on Earth safely.
The records are nice to have but the engineering was superb!
To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts:
1. Legal Standing. 2. Safety Awareness. 3. Economic Viability. 4. Theoretical-Empirical Relationship. 5. Technological Feasibility.
In this post I will explore Safety Awareness.
In the heady rush to propose academically acceptable ideas about new propulsions systems or star drives it is very easy to overlook safety considerations. The eminent cosmologist Carl Sagan said it best “So the problem is not to shield the payload, the problem is to shield the earth” (Planet. Space Sci., pp. 485 – 498, 1963)
To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts:
1. Legal Standing. 2. Safety Awareness. 3. Economic Viability. 4. Theoretical-Empirical Relationship. 5. Technological Feasibility.
In this post I will explore Legal Standing.
With respect to space exploration, the first person I know of who pushed the limits of the law is Mr. Gregory W. Nemitz of The Eros Project. He started this project in March 2000. As a US taxpayer, Nemitz made the claim that he is the Owner of Asteroid 433, Eros, and published his claim about 11 months prior to NASA landing its “NEAR Shoemaker” spacecraft on this asteroid.
Science and engineering are hard to do. If it wasn’t we would have a space bridge from here to the Moon by now. If you don’t have the real world practical experience doing either science or engineering you won’t understand this, or the effort and resources companies like Boeing, Lockheed, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp, Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic, and the Ad Astra Rocket Company have put into their innovations and products to get to where they are, today.
If we are to achieve interstellar travel, we have to be bold.
We have to explore what others have not.
We have to seek what others will not.
We have to change what others dare not.
The dictionary definition of a directive is, an instruction or order, tending to direct or directing, and indicating direction.
Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, US Department of Defense 2005, provides three similar meanings,
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In this post we will look at the last three types of engines. Can these engine technologies be debunked?
Start with the boring stuff. Nuclear/plasma engines. For more information look up Franklin Chang-Diaz’s Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). Real. Cannot be debunked.
Now for the more interesting stuff. The second is Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE). This type of engine uses detonation waves to combust fuel and oxidizer mixture. “The engine is pulsed because the mixture must be renewed in the combustion chamber between each detonation wave initiated by an ignition source.” Theoretically this type of engine is capable of speeds from subsonic to Mach 5.
Continue reading “Debunking Pulse Detonation Engines — Yes, No, Maybe” »
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This video was broadcast on G4TV, September 19th 2012.
http://www.g4tv.com/videos/60838/dr-eric-w-davis-on-new-ligh…g-science/
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Why is it necessary to debunk bad or unrealistic technologies? If don’t we live in a dream world idealized by theoretical engineering that has no hope of ever becoming financially feasible. What a waste of money, human resources and talent. I’d rather we know now upfront and channel our energies to finding feasible engineering and financial solutions. Wouldn’t you?
We did the math required to figure out the cost of antimatter fuel one would require just to reach 0.1c and then cost at that velocity, never mind about reaching Alpha Centauri.
| Table 2: | Antimatter Rocket Fuel Costs to Alpha Centuariat 0.1c (in metric tons) | ||||
| Source of Estimates | Amount of Antimatter Required | Maximum Velocity |
Spacecraft Mass | ||
Continue reading “Debunking Antimatter Rockets for Interstellar Travel” »
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Why is it necessary to debunk bad or unrealistic technologies? If don’t we live in a dream world idealized by theoretical engineering that has no hope of ever becoming financially feasible. What a waste of money, human resources and talent. I’d rather we know now upfront and channel our energies to finding feasible engineering and financial solutions. Wouldn’t you?
We did the math required to figure out how much fuel one would require just to reach 0.1c and then cost at that velocity until you reach Alpha Centauri and reverse thrust to orbit the star.
| Table 1: | Conventional Rocket Fuel Costs to travel to Alpha Centauri at 0.1c | |||||
| Maximum Velocity (km/s) |
1980’s cost ($/lb) | |||||
Continue reading “Debunking Conventional Rocket Interstellar Travel Once And For All” »
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I just watched Looper the movie. It is such a good movie and a great story. But then I’m biased. Anything with Bruce Willis is a great movie. Bruce Willis is getting older, which reminds me so am I!
For those who have not watched Looper I won’t give the story away … Looper is a must watch for science fiction fans. And there were other great movies and episodes about time travel. The three Back to the Future, and the Star Trek episodes, for starters.
That was the good news, and now for the bad news. Time travel is impossible. The mathematics behind time travel is excellent, but the physics is not. In contemporary physics, the mechanism of time travel requires wormholes. You get into a wormhole on one side and you pop out the other side either in the future or in the past, depending on what the wormhole was designed to do.
EOH events are events that cause the irreversible termination of humanity. They are not events that start the physical destruction of humanity (that would be too late), but fundamental, non-threatening and inconspicuous events that eventually lead to the irreversible physical destruction of humanity. Using nations and civilizations I explain how.
(1) Fundamental: These events have to be fundamental to the survival of the human species or else they cannot negatively impact the foundation of humanity’s existence.
On a much smaller scale drought and war can and have destroyed nations and civilizations. However, that is not always the case. For example, it is still not know what caused the demise of the Mayan civilization.
The act of war can lead to the irreversible destruction of a nation or civilization, but the equivalent EOH event lay further back in history, and can only be answered by the questions who and why.
